


Impossible Things

by geekchic



Category: Classic Alice (Web Series)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-17
Updated: 2015-01-17
Packaged: 2018-03-07 23:29:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3187256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geekchic/pseuds/geekchic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He wanted to go after her, chase her down like the men did in the movies he watched and the books she read. But this wasn't a film or a book; this was the real world. And in this world, he had hurt her and she had hurt him in ways that a romantic monologue couldn't fix. Fiction hadn't taught him how to fix any of this."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Impossible Things

**Author's Note:**

> Classic Alice is one of my favorite webseries (and one of my favorite things, period) so I just had to write something inspired by the last episode. This is set directly after the events in episode 29 (discarding the last confessional).  
> Hope you enjoy!   
> (Also, all of these characters belong to Kate Hackett)

If there was one thing that Alice thought she knew how to do, it was how to tell a good story. She spent years learning every rhetorical device and technique in the books, hoping that she would be able to use them to manipulate words as beautifully as the authors whose books she devoured did. She had learned that the most important piece to proper storytelling, the key to having a work that means something real and powerful, was to have your character grow over the course of the tale. Your character should have flaws, of course, perfect characters rarely ever speak to an audience. But throughout the piece, they should find a way to tackle their imperfections in an attempt to better themselves. At some point, they have to undergo a change.

Alice, who had spent almost a year of her life reliving books, hadn't realized that she had originally set out to follow this plot line when she agreed to start The Project. She thought that she had signed up for it just to prove her professor wrong, maybe get enough extra credit to bump that B minus up to the A it deserved. But somewhere along the way, similar to how a hero's quest evolves into a search for themselves rather than any material treasure, something about the project changed. She wanted to change. Not completely, not enough to take on the role of Eliza instead of Henry, but just enough that she could see the same kind of growth that she had come to expect in the books she read. She thought that maybe her professor was right in that she was too stiff, not just in her writing but in how she acted. Scrooge hoarded money, but she hoarded impulsive experiences, never allowing herself to open up or take chances without the need of a PowerPoint or graph. It wasn't that those things didn't have their time or place, but she figured that if she always lived in a safe little world behind computer screens and the pages of a book, she would never grow. Her story, the one that she had been weaving her whole life, would be dull and uninteresting. And how could she expect herself to be a successful writer if she couldn't even write her own tale? 

Andrew helped her with that. He encouraged her to come out of her shell and prodded her to do things that didn't necessarily fit into her comfort zone. He helped her live. Sure, at times he was reckless, dangerous even. But he gave her something far more important than a series of videos and podcasts. He gave her fun.   
\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
The tears threatened their way down her cheeks as soon as she had entered his apartment building's lobby. She brushed them aside quickly before making her way towards the front door. She had walked there, a decision that she didn't mind when she went to Andrew's apartment, but she hadn't put much thought into how she would feel about the journey home. A commute that would have normally taken her less than fifteen minutes in her car was almost doubled on the way her way there. 

“Probably how Nathan got here so quickly,” she mused. Earlier, her walk was filled with a mind buzzing with possibilities. She had accumulated every possible scenario that she could have come up with, every reaction that he could have had towards her confession, gathering them all and outlining them in her head. She hadn't put much thought into this reaction though. The one where he didn't kiss her back. The one where he didn't want her any more. She had missed her chance, their chance, and now she was feeling the consequences. 

“You should have seen it coming though,” she thought to herself as she began to walk towards her apartment. “What were expecting him to do, wait for you forever? That wouldn't be fair, Alice. Andrew doesn't deserve to follow you around for the rest of his life. He put himself out there and you rejected him. You can hardly blame him for not wanting you.” As much as she knew that her head was right, it didn't make the pain hurt any less.   
\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
Andrew had no idea how long he had been standing there before he realized that he was in the open door frame of his apartment, open mouthed and confused as hell. At first, he thought that the past few moments were just one crazy, alcohol induced dream, but the sharp pain that erupted from his wrist when he pinched it proved that theory wrong. 

“What the hell was that?” he whispered, running his hands through his hair as he tried to process everything that had happened. Alice, the same girl who had been ignoring him for days, the same girl who had rejected him, mere weeks ago had shown up out of nowhere and kissed him. And then...ran away? 

He wanted to go after her, chase her down like the men did in the movies he watched and the books she read. But this wasn't a film or a book; this was the real world. And in this world, he had hurt her and she had hurt him in ways that a romantic monologue couldn't fix. Fiction hadn't taught him how to fix any of this. So he sighed and shut the door, his mind buzzing with questions and worries and mostly just thoughts of, “what the hell was that” on a constant loop.

By the time Andrew had stepped back into his apartment, Nathan had returned to his previous spot on the couch. His camera had been put away and all of his attention was spent on his laptop, possibly editing footage or a picture for Instagram. Honestly, Andrew didn't really give a shit about whatever he was doing. He just wanted answers. 

“Did you have anything to do with...with that?” Andrew asked, gesturing to the door. 

Nathan looked up at him, annoyed at the fact that he had somehow been dragged into all of this drama.

“Oh why did I even bother asking, of course you weren't. You're the 'uninvolved participant.'” He realized that his words were unnecessarily harsh, but they were leaving his mouth before he could think about their intensity. 

Nathan sighed and shook his head as he turned his computer screen towards Andrew. There was an I-movie file open, Alice's face displayed in the editing window. 

“Dude, I already told you that I'm not watching the project. I promised her that I wouldn't,” he said. He tried to turn the screen away, but Nathan stopped him.

“Seriously, just watch the god damn footage. I signed up to be a documentary intern, not a relationship therapist,” he snapped before getting up. “And when I come back, I expect my laptop to still be here,” he added before leaving.

Andrew had opened his mouth to speak, but his intern was gone before he had the chance to say anything. He shut his mouth, trying to wrap his mind around the fact that he had just witnessed his second impossible thing that day, both of them occurring in the same hour. He glanced back at the laptop, the raw footage of Alice's video open before him. He hesitated before clicking play.   
\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
He considered leaving before he even reached her front door, but he knew that he couldn't do that. He had to see her, talk to her, try to repair the damage that they both caused each other. He hoped that the damage could even be fixed. He reached for the door knob. Locked. He chuckled softly. The one time that she had actually listened to him was the one time that he had hoped she'd be defiant. He must have really messed up if it had led to her locking the door. He knocked, his knuckles gently hitting the wooden door.   
“Alice,” he said softly, “Alice, please just open up.” Nothing. He sighed and sat against the door, his back resting against the wood.

He saw a figure turn down the hallway and walk towards him. He froze when he saw the familiar red jacket that matched the woman's hair.

“Andrew? What are you doing here?” Alice asked, stopping in front of him. 

He got up quickly, “I was here to see you,” he replied. “What are you doing out here?”

“I walked home,” she said, fishing in her pocket for her keys. Once she found them, she unlocked the door, gesturing for him to go in first. He did, slowly entering the apartment. Before today, he would not have seen anything weird about being around Alice, but now everything was awkward. Something had shifted between the two of them, a line had been crossed and while both of them knew that they had to talk about it, neither one wanted to initiate the conversation. 

Andrew had no idea what had happened, what force overcame him, but something made him break the ice. 

“So,” he said quietly. He sat down on her couch and looked around her living room. The room was familiar to him as he had spent many a night on her sofa, but now he was inspecting the room, deciding that counting the amount of carpet fibers beneath him would be better than meeting her gaze.

“So,” she mirrored, unbuttoning her coat and draping it over the arm of the sofa farthest from him. She sat, tucking her knees together and hugging them to her chest. She seemed tiny when she sat like that, so vulnerable and afraid of him, of the situation that they had put themselves in.

“We should probably talk.”

She nodded, her eyes remained fixed down at her hands and the floor, anywhere but his gaze. Silence filled the room, an awkward break that never existed between them before today. 

“This is awkward,” he acknowledged. 

She quietly laughed, still avoiding eye contact. 

“Please look at me,” he said softly. “Talk to me.”

“I don't really know what to say,” she stammered. “I mean I don't know what you would want me to say that would be able to fix any of this or-.” she talked quickly, something Andrew knew that she only did when she was nervous.

“Alice,” he interrupted. “Nathan gave me the files from today. I-I watched the video.”

Her head shot up, her eyes wide with fear and anticipation, making eye contact with Andrew for the first time during their conversation. 

“You, you did?” she asked. She looked down again. “So you know.”

He nodded. “Yeah, I think I do? I'm just...confused.” 

“I'm so sorry, Andrew. I'm a writer, I'm supposed to have all the right words, but I can't even begin to explain how sorry I am for putting you in that kind of situation. I just don't want to lose you. I can't lose you, Andrew. I would rather have you in my life as a friend or even just as a project partner than not have you at all.”

“I don't want to lose you either, Alice,” he said, unintentionally moving down the sofa and closer towards her. “And you are gonna have to do a lot more than make some weirdly specific board game to scare me off. I'm just confused about what brought this on all of a sudden. You've just never seemed...interested before. Was this just your version of Scrooge's change of ways?”

“Oh god no,” she replied. “Andrew, for once this had nothing to do with the project. This was about me and my emotions, not some plot lines or characters. Everything that I felt, everything that I said in that video is real and honest.”

He smiled at her, “Well why didn't you say anything sooner? I've tried to- I mean you know, and you've never seemed like you've wanted to go down that path so I didn't want you to feel like you were being pushed into something that you didn't want.”

She smiled shyly and shook her head, “I wouldn't have done it if I didn't want to. And I think that before, I was just too scared of losing you. You know we have something that means so much to me and I didn't want to ruin that with, with whatever that was. Honestly, I thought that I ruined it by going over to your place. 

“What do you mean?”

“Well you never kissed me back; I thought that the...offer was off the table,” she confessed, meeting his eye for the first time, growing braver with each word.

It was Andrew's turn to laugh, “Alice, I was in shock! What am I supposed to do when the girl I've been in love with for years randomly knocks on my door and plants one on me?” 

Silence filled the room as the weight of Andrew's words feel on both of them. His first instinct was to try and take them back, make up some lame coverup and pretend that he had never said anything. But he didn't, because he realized that the words couldn't be taken back and that even if they could, he wouldn't want to. Alice deserved to know the truth, what he really felt about her. 

“You, you do?” she said, running her hands across the back of her neck.

“Alice, of course I do. I don't think that subtlety has ever been one of my strengths, especially when it comes to you.” 

She blushed, “Still, I feel like communication is one of the things that we definitely need to work on. Starting right now, we will be completely honest with each other, deal?” 

“Deal. So, I guess that I will go first,” he comically cleared his throat, gaining a laugh from her and his nerves seemed to melt away at the sound of her glee. “Alice Rackham, I can't make any speeches that are going to be as awesome as Mr. Darcy's or whatever, but I need you to know that I'm completely in love with you. And I know that I've done things to hurt you and I'm so sorry for that, but I think that we could make this work. I want to make it work with you, Alice. I want to sit here and watch you read and be ignored for hours while you're in your fictional universes because watching you be in those worlds makes me feel so lucky that you're in mine. I don't know how to tell you how much you mean to me but I-”

He didn't get the chance to go on as she grabbed him and pulled him for another kiss. The third impossible thing that happened to him that day.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope that you enjoyed it. If you did, consider saving Classic Alice by donating to the link below. They are looking for money to film more episodes and need your help!  
>  https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/classic-alice-books-8-beyond


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